Aspartame, the sweetener in Diet Coke [and most other zero-calorie sodas], has been relentlessly assaulted since it debuted in the early 1980s. Just this month, in an exhaustive investigation, the European Food Safety Authority not only declared aspartame safe. Its report noted that rebutting junk-science claims against aspartame has been a full-time job since the agency was created in 2002.